


XChange

by Soobiebear



Category: The Grand Tour (TV) RPF
Genre: Gender or Sex Swap, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 16:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18743071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soobiebear/pseuds/Soobiebear
Summary: Jeremy indulges in a bit of recreational pharmacology.





	XChange

Unforeseen documentation problems halted them at the Malaysian border, forcing cast and crew alike into hotel rooms overlooking the South China Sea. It was nothing special by western standards, but far above some of the hovels they’d been shoehorned into over the years, and miles above caravanning or tenting.

Boredom set in quickly, two days Andy and his assortment of legal people fought for visas and working papers that had already been approved, the Malaysian government flip fopping on fees and signatures and official stamps with every passing bureaucratic hour. They’d explored the beach and the bar, and as far as they dared venture into the nitty gritty of Narathiwat. 

By nightfall on Day Two, Jeremy had taken to bemoaning loudly that they were bored. Grounded to the hotel property by Andy due to last night’s events, they congregated in Jeremy’s room. Richard flipped through indecipherable TV channels and James tried to read a battered copy of _The DaVinci Code_ , the only book he could find in English. 

James managed to round up several bottles of what looked like alcohol before Andy’s imposed curfew, and Jeremy had sweet talked the bar into giving them several six packs. As long as their internet connection held they should be able to make it another night.

“Bored,” Jeremy announced as he pulled his glasses off and rubbed at his dry eyes. There were only so many things worth reading online, and after seeing nothing newsworthy about himself in The Sun he’d given up.

James rolled his eyes and stuck his nose further into the musty book. Richard rolled around on the bed, obviously done with the various MCOT offerings and ToonToon. “Truth or dare?” he offered, always willing to rile James up.

Jeremy wasn’t in the mood, already chafing at Andy’s heavy handed restrictions. “No,” he said shaking his head. “Feels more like a beer pong kind of night.”

“I’ll drink the stuff you got, but not anything James hauled in.” Richard killed the TV and the gibberish language that spilled from it. “What did he get anyway?”

Jeremy hadn’t been able to read the bottles. He could do a little Vietnamese after spending so much time there, but Thai was out of his range. “Just more snake venom vodka and bull semen tequila probably.” It could have been, Jeremy reasoned. One was pinkish and another was sort of ... cloudy. 

“One’s a local version of rum, and the other is a fortified wine.” James had dropped the book on his lap, knowing he wouldn’t be allowed to sit and read quietly. 

“Oh, well then...” Richard perked up and climbed off the bed in a tangle of arms and little legs, digging through the plastic carry bag and pulling out a squarish bottle. “This the rum, James?” The lettering was indecipherable, leaving them no better than illiterate. 

James blinked, not remembering much except that he’d shoved random bottles onto the counter and hoped he’d given the old woman enough baht to cover his total. “Open it and find out.” Richard was already digging a nail into the foil top, twisting and pulling and making a mess.

Several shots later, Richard decided he liked the bilious alcohol, sucking his lips and letting his eyes water between rounds. “You sure this is rum?” Richard sniffed at another shot, realizing he needed to slow down if he was going to hold onto his supper.

“I never said that,” James denied, clutching onto his own shotglass.

“You did!” Richard insisted, bouncing on the edge of the bed that he’d claimed as his seat for the evening. Jeremy watched him warily, not wanting to sleep in a puddle of undetermined alcohol or Hamster vomit. “You said it was rum or wine!”

“Maybe it was rum,” James hedged. “I can’t read Thai.”

Richard made another grab for the bottle and missed, sending it on its side across the nightstand. “Fuck,” he swore, quickly righting the bottle and trying to contain the spill. 

“That’s alcohol abuse,” James giggled as he watched Hammond try to dam up the edges of the table with his hands.

“James, get a towel.” Hammond watched as his precious alcohol dribbled off the edge and into the carpet. 

“It’s my room deposit, you idiot,” Jezza was already lumbering to the bath to grab a towel while James watched Richard try to save alcohol as it slipped through his fingers. 

“Yes, yes, I’ll clean it up if you’d just get a towel.”

Jeremy tossed Richard a small hand towel and left him to clean. They had a good time mocking Richard as he dabbed at the carpet, Richard taking the ribbing good-naturedly until he finished wiping off the nightstand and threw the wet towel at Clarkson. Jeremy hadn’t moved fast enough and Richard landed the rum soaked towel directly on his chest. “Hammond!” he roared, sputtering, as James brayed with laughter.

When the laughs died down and Jeremy changed his shirt, the trio sat quietly again and the cycle of boredom started anew. 

“We could race luggage carts up and down the corridor,” Richard suggested.

“Too old for that,” James countered. Richard added that James was too old for anything that involved fun, poking at his friend and the ancient joke. 

“No, I agree with May, my hip is beyond broken.” A dangerous light crossed Jeremy’s face. “Unless we can push Hammond down the stairs in a luggage trolley...”

James caught on to where he was going. “Can you imagine having to tell Mindy that he crashed inside the hotel?”

“Yes, thank you,” Richard said, fighting his own smile.

“We could play poker. Someone has to have a deck of cards somewhere.” James wasn’t particularly fond of poker, but it was something both Hammond and Jeremy could manage in various stages of intoxication. Plus James could read them and wipe them out every time.

“I’ve seen how you play poker, James.” Richard tipped his head down and looked levelly at James, who only managed to look oblivious. “Cheater.”

James shrugged without any admission, not hurt when the idea fell aside. They waited for Jeremy to put out an idea. While Jeremy’s ideas were typically crap, at least they were ambitious enough to keep them occupied for several hours until it would be late enough to sleep. 

Jeremy looked between his two accomplices, neither one his best friend but both long term friends none the less. He took in their eager, drunken faces and stood up again to dig through his luggage, finding the pink pill tucked in with his blood pressure medication.

He held the small pill out proudly in the palm of his hand. It has cost almost half a million. Dong. Jeremy laughed at his own joke in his head, both that the little pill was half a million and that their currency was called dong. It was never not funny.

James and Richard were both gathered around and looking down into his palm, brows pulling together as they viewed the singular pill.

“If that’s your water pill and you want one of us to wee all night, you can forget it mate.” Richard looked back and forth between Jeremy and the mystery pill with concern.

“Why’s there only one?” James was a little less concerned, having lived through the eighties, but a little more critical. “There’s three of us.”

“Oh my god, they shoot you here on the spot for drugs, don’t they?” Richard slowly realized it wasn’t one of Jeremy’s standard chemist allsorts. “Flush it,” he urged.

“Can you cut into three?” James pushed his thumbnail into it, waiting for it to crumble. “Or should we crush it?” He gave a little snort for explanation.

“I don’t think it works like that,” Jeremy closed his palm around the pill and James pulled his hand away.

“You don’t even know what it does!” Richard couldn’t believe James was just going to take it without knowing what it was.

“And? Are you going anywhere tonight?” 

Richard raised an eyebrow at James’ frankness. “Well, no but...”

“It might be molly. You like molly.” Richard dipped his head at James’s knowledge of his long ago clubbing days.

“I don’t do that anymore.”

“Hammond, you are thousands of miles away from your responsibilities as Family Man. What is a third of a pill going to do?” He pushed Jeremy’s closed fist towards Richard. “Not bloody much.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Jeremy called an end to their discussion. “Let’s not bicker and argue over what this is or isn’t.”

“Yeah, ok, so what is it then?” Richard cut off Jeremy’s train of thought and Jeremy lost his steam, two inquisitive faces staring at him patiently. Suddenly he didn’t think he wanted to share his Vietnamese purchase.

“Jeremy, what is it?” James gentle prodding drew him out from his now rampant thoughts of how this could horribly go wrong.

“I...” he stuttered, trying to sidestep his way out of this one. “BoughtitfromaprostiuteinVietnam,” he mumbled.

“Wot?” James tilted his head and Richard mouthed the quiet words to himself. 

Richard blinked and looked confused. “A prostitute?”

James squinted at Jeremy’s still closed fist, the pill undoubtedly melting against Jeremy’s sweaty skin. “GHB?”

“No, don’t be...” Jeremy tapered off with a sneer. 

“C’mon, let us have a look then.” James, always more adventurous than he played on the telly, made a move to pry Jeremy’s hand open. They play fought back forth for a minute as Richard tried to parse information. 

“So if it’s not E, and it’s not GHB, what is it?” He hadn’t seen cocaine packed into a pill like that, and LSD was so horribly out of style... Maybe it was something new he’d never tried before.

James managed to get Jeremy’s fingers open again, leaving the little pink pill sitting on lined flesh. “This, gentlemen, is supposed to make the evening... very interesting.”

“Yeah?” Richard prompted after waiting for Jeremy to continue.

“It’s a sex change pill,” Jeremy finally said a few beats longer than was comfortable. “That’s what I was told.”

James pinched the bridge of his nose and Richard looked at James with concern. Jeremy had finally gone off the deep end. “Look, mate, I don’t know what’s going on in your personal life, but I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.” He was no longer perhaps interested in the pill, wanting to keep it far away from his tenuous hold on his masculinity. “Flush it.”

“It’s not illegal,” Jeremy argued. “It’s not legal either. Think of it as an ambiguous grey.”

“I’m not trying it.” James had his arms folded protectively around his chest. “I’d make a horrible woman.”

Jeremy pulled the pill away from him. “We wouldn’t know if it worked or not with you.” James blinked strongly like he used to when he first joined their little circus. “There would be no change.”

Jeremy turned towards Richard, who was still trying hard not to snigger. “No. Oh no, I am not trying it.”

“Well, that leaves me then,” Jeremy said, voice steeled with resolve. 

“You can’t either, I’ve seen you as a woman, Jennifer Clarkson, working at a checkout stand. Shrunk my willie for a week and still gives me piss shivers.” Richard was suddenly interested in the pill again, if only to get it away from Clarkson.

“He wasn’t so bad when he was young.” James seemed to consider Jeremy for a moment, raising an eyebrow in Richard’s direction.

“Oh god,” Richard moaned, ignoring James’s horrific comment. “So my choices are Jennifer Clarkson or the pigeon lady from ‘Home Alone’.” He redoubled his efforts to get the pill and flush it away. “Whatever you paid for it, I’ll pay you back, just get rid of it.”

“We could still cut it in thirds,” James said reasonably. 

Both men turned to look at him. “And what? Grow one boob each? Maybe nothing would happen then and it would be wasted.”

Richard had no interest in anyone changing genders tonight or any other night. “’M still not trying it, not even a third.”

“Because your penis would disappear and you’d feel vulnerable.” Jeremy rolled his eyes at the stock rebuttal Richard tried to mount, blustering and puffing up as his gender was challenged.

“I think you’d make a very pretty woman.” Richard’s jaw dropped as he looked at James.

“I would not!”

James said it so deadpan that Jeremy almost missed his cue. “He’s right. You’ve got the eyes, and your skin is already great.”

“I’m not girly, and I’m not taking the pill.” He held up his hands. “Man hands, see?” Richard stroked his goatee. “Male, very much male thank you.”

James grabbed Richard’s hands and ran his thumbs over Richard’s skin. “So soft, and your wrists are so delicate...”

Richard pulled his hands away like he’d been burnt and Jeremy laughed, which cracked James’ facade, a smile breaking across his features. “You bought it, you take it then.” Richard smoothed his goatee and pulled his shirt straight in an effort to look unruffled, giving up on trying to muscle the pill away from Jeremy. 

Everyone looked at the pill still laying in Jeremy’s palm.

“It’s melting,” James noticed, small smears of pink starting to rub off on Jeremy’s hand.

“Can it be absorbed through skin?” Jeremy moved his palm so the pill slid around to a barren patch of flesh.

“Oh, for...” James cursed and pinched what was left of the pill out of Jeremy’s hand, tossing it in his mouth. Without a word, James grabbed Richard by the shoulders and pushed his tongue into Richard’s mouth, forcing the mystery chemical on to Hammond as well. Richard spit and wiped frantically at his tongue after he pushed James away, checking to make sure he wiped all the pink away.

“You utter rotter,” Richard spat again, not caring they were indoors.

Jeremy laughed, their dosing problems solved. “I still think James got the largest bit.”

“Evil bastard,” Richard hissed under his breath, still surreptitiously spitting into the carpet. 

“All for one and one for all, aye?” James blinked and waited for something, anything to happen. Even being the butt of jokes for the rest of the night was better than purgatory.


End file.
